In present-day data communications systems, data transmission with a high data rate suffers from limited bandwidth and significant loss stemming from properties of the signal channels. For example, conventional copper-based electrical interconnects have been shown sufficient for applications with data rate below 10 Gb/s. However, for data rates beyond 10 Gb/s, these electrical interconnects perform very poorly. To overcome these limitations, fiber-optic interconnects have been used to handle larger data volume and higher data rates compared to conventional electrical interconnects. Fiber-optic interconnects have shown improvement in terms of weight, energy efficiency, channel bandwidth, crosstalk, and electromagnetic interference.
Since circuits and devices made with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology are still utilized at various parts in high data rate transmission systems, switching to fiber-optic interconnects only changes which part of the system is the transmission rate bottleneck. Optical circuits still need to be interfaced with electrical circuits. More advanced technologies like silicon-on-insulator CMOS have been shown to provide performance improvements, but the expense associated with advanced technologies can be prohibitive for large scale mass production.